How to set up a development environment in MS Access

Question

I have created an MS Access 2003 application, set up as a split front-end/back-end configuration, with a user group of about five people. The front end .mdb sits on a network fi

Answer 1

Use VBA to unlink and re-link your tables to the new target when switching from dev to prod. It's been to many years for me to remember the syntax--I just know the function was simple to write.

Or use MS-Access to talk to MS-Access through ODBC, or some other data connection that lives outside of the client mdb.

As with all file base databases, you will eventually run into problems with peak usage or when you go over a small magical number somewhere between 2 and 30.

Also, Access tends to corrupt frequently, so backup, compact and repair need to be done on an frequent basis. 3rd party tools used to exist to automate this task.

As far as performance goes, the data is being processed client side, so you might want to use something like netmeter to watch how much data is going over the wire. The same principle about indexing and avoiding table scans apply to file base dbs as well.